


Negotiable Consonants

by vaguely_concerned



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:28:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25280860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vaguely_concerned/pseuds/vaguely_concerned
Summary: T.F. gets up from the chair and wraps his arms around me, kissing my temple. “I promise to only use this against you whenever it’d be really, really funny,” he says fondly against my hair. “So about three or four times a day for the next fifty years or so.”A snippet of a thing that might turn into something longer -- the necessary context is basically that in the aftermath of a battlefield they’ve found a baby who’s only a couple of weeks old, and after a long series of complicated events they end up deciding their best choice is to keep the kid, hijinks and kid fic ensue!
Relationships: Malcolm Graves/Twisted Fate
Comments: 4
Kudos: 33





	Negotiable Consonants

From where I’m doin’ the dishes — yeah, I know, I can hardly believe it either, I barely recognize myself some days — I can just see them around the corner of the doorway, the kid on T.F.’s lap as she finishes her last pieces of berry jam and cheese toast. 

“Ah paPA!” the kid exclaims cheerfully, tugging at the front of Tobias’ shirt. 

He bounces her a bit on his lap, lookin’ down at her like — well. I know that feeling too. He doesn’t even seem to mind that she’s gotten berry stains all over his shirt, which is more forbearance than he’s ever shown to me in all our years of runnin’ together. To be fair I guess I ain’t quite as cute. “Sure,” Tobias says, cupping the back of her downy little head and stroking through the hair there. “When you put it like that. I’ll be your papa.” 

She gets in a couple more random excitable babbles while waving her arms around, T.F. makin’ like it’s a deep philosophical conversation they’re havin’ when he answers. I snort a laugh as I finish drying off the last few dishes, listening to the comfortingly familiar sound of T.F. talkin’ practiced and graceful bullshit with half an ear. Then she suddenly grows quiet, a troubled look scrunching up her tiny brow. 

“Amah?” she asks, squinting up at T.F. worriedly. 

“Huh?” He squints back at her. She makes the grabby motion with her hands that usually means somethin’ like ‘give it here or there’s gonna be tears about it from us both’, and he takes her bottle from the table and offers it to her. “You thirsty, that it?”

She gives an indignant wail of protest and pushes it away, and Tobias gives it another few seconds before he offers it again to the same effect. We usually give it at least two tries before we give up on the bottle, ‘cause sometimes she gets so caught up in bein’ frustrated that she forgets the whole thing started in the first place because she was thirsty. It’s tough out there when every one of the world’s discomforts is a fresh discovery to you and your brain’s only about the size of an orange yet. 

T.F. keeps his cool and talks her cheerily through the small tantrum, trying a few other common complaints — too hot and too cold, hands sticky or socks on like normal but somehow still inexplicably _wrong_ — all to no avail.

“MAH!” she yells finally, a slight edge of panic in it now as she makes the grabby motion again. Weird, she usually ain’t this fussy, at least not so soon after a nap. 

“Not entirely sure I can help you here, kiddo,” T.F. says faintly, clearly stumped. 

I finish up with the plates and throw the dishrag to rest crumpled up on the counter before I walk into the room with them. “Might be time for a nappy check again?” 

T.F. makes an incredulous sound as he shifts her a little on his lap. “Surely not, it’s only been like ten minutes since I — ” 

“Mama!” the kid shouts, all joy suddenly, and makes the grabby hands towards — towards _me_.

It’s quiet in the room for a while as she sticks her pink tongue out the corner of her mouth and leans towards me so ardently that T.F. hurriedly has to grab her to keep her from toppling off his lap. She has her hands out in the ‘pick me up pick me up pick me up!’ way now, and looks kind of annoyed when nothin’ happens over it. 

“Ah-ma,” she insists exasperatedly as she gestures for me again, like we’re bein’ well and truly slow on her here. 

Tobias, very quietly, bites his bottom lip.

“Is this your doin’, you son of a b — you f — you… eel bottom?” I ask, levelling an accusing finger at him sitting there, shoulders shaking with silent laughter, as I pick the now happily cooing kid up with my other hand. “‘Cause if this sticks I’m gonna make you sleep on the floor for the rest of the damn, uh, darn — ” 

He lets out a wheeze of laughter and dries his eyes on his sleeve, shaking his head vigorously. “I swear to you, I ha-ha-haven’t done anythin’, this is way too good for me to come up with on my own. Aaaah. I told you, she’s a genius.” 

The kid pulls lovingly at my ear, hard enough that it makes me grimace and gently pry her fingers away, and as if to underline the whole thing again she babbles a steady stream of ‘ _mamamamama_ ’s as she changes tack to tug at my beard, mashing her little face against my neck affectionately. 

“She must’ve picked up on your naturally warm and nurturing air,” T.F. chimes in cheerfully, and if it weren’t for the inconvenient fucking fact that I love that bastard more than all but one thing in this world I would’ve wrung his neck, like he deserves. “I always said she’s got good eyes on her already.” 

“Shush, you,” I tell him. I would probably have used some different words if it weren’t for the kid singing idly and off key to herself against my ear. Hell, I still do slip up and use those words a fair amount anyway, but if her real, actual first non-babble word ends up bein’ ‘bastard’ or ‘fuck’ T.F. ain’t never letting me live it down. We ain’t in Bilgewater anymore now, Malcolm Graves, apparently ‘you little rat fucker’ isn’t considered an acceptable fond childhood nickname in the rest of the world.

I hold her up in front of me, looking at her imploringly. “Is there any sort of chance we could switch out a consonant here? How d’you feel about ‘dada’, you think we could do that? ‘Dada’. C’mon, you say it.”

She looks back at me in benevolent confusion, kicking her feet. 

I point at T.F., and she follows my finger with her eyes. “So that’s Papa,” I say, and she nods, though in agreement or just… ‘cause, I can’t quite say, and then I point at myself and say: “And this is M — Dada.”

“Oooh, close one there, Malcolm,” T.F. laughs, then pauses for a moment. “Ah, I think I see where she might’ve gotten the idea, huh.” 

“I’m more interested in how to get the idea back out of her head again,” I say glumly. She smacks her lips and rubs at her nose and there is way too much power already held in the palms of her small grubby berry-stained hands because gods help me, if she decides I’m ‘mama’, then ‘mama’ I shall have to be at least until she’s old enough to learn something else.

T.F. gets up from the chair and wraps his arms around me, kissing my temple. “I promise to only use this against you whenever it’d be really, really funny,” he says fondly against my hair. “So about three or four times a day for the next fifty years or so.” 

“You gotta wonder what kinda sinning I got into in a past life to be settled with you in this one,” I sigh, turning my face for a soft closed-mouthed kiss as I bring the kid back to rest against my chest again. 

**Author's Note:**

> Posted this to my tumblr before but uploading it here too for better safekeeping! I like the idea that as the kid grows she ends up calling Graves ‘Da’, and T.F. ‘Pa’ or ‘Teff/Teffie’ interchangeably. (And T.F. sometimes makes cheerful use of ‘Mama Graves’, because he’s an asshole) 
> 
> I have no idea if this is ever going to turn into Something — I’m trying to focus my energy on a longer T.F. POV thing I’m chipping away at — but if I never get back to it I’ll just say here that the vague idea for a plot I have for this is something like ‘it turns out the kid’s parents were Demacian magic users who got hunted down by mage seekers and died in the conflict, they find out the kid’s got magic as well and it doesn’t really work like T.F.’s does but it’s the closest thing they’ve got to work with so he has to figure out some stuff about his own magic as well to help her out, Graves has a lot of ‘if anything happens to either of them I’ll kill everyone in the world and then myself’ feelings and learns how to cook’


End file.
